al figures stood on the breezy side of the wall--in winter
and in rain to leeward; but no weather was known to dislodge them.

'I had no sooner come ashore than the wind began to fly round,' said the
previous speaker; 'and it must have been about the time they were off Old-
Harry Point. "She'll put back for certain," I said; and I had no more
thought o' seeing her than John's set-net that was carried round the
point o' Monday.'

'Poor feller: his wife being in such a state makes him anxious to land if
'a can: that's what 'tis, plain enough.'

'Why that?' said Flower.

'The doctor's aboard, 'a believe: "I'll have the most understanding man
in Sandbourne, cost me little or much," he said.'

''Tis all over and she's better,' said the other. 'I called half-an-hour
afore dark.'

Flower, being an experienced man, knew how the judgment of a ship's
master was liable to be warped by family anxieties, many instances of the
same having occurred in the history of navigation. He felt uneasy, for
he knew the deceit and guile of this bay far better than did the master
of the Spruce, who, till within a few recent months, had been a stranger
to the place. Indeed, it was the bay which had made Flower what he was,
instead of a man in thriving retirement. The two great ventures of his
life had been blown ashore and broken up within that very semicircle. The
sturdy sailor now stood with his eyes fixed on the triangle of lights
which showed that the steamer had not relinquished her intention of
bringing up inside the pier if possible; his right hand was in his
pocket, where it played with a large key which lay there. It was the key
of the lifeboat shed, and Flower was coxswain. His musing was on the
possibility of a use for it this night.

It appeared that the captain of the Spruce was aiming to pass in under
the lee of the pier; but a strong current of four or five knots was
running between the piles, drifting the steamer away at every attempt as
soon as she slowed. To come in on the other side was dangerous, the hull
of the vessel being likely to crash against and overthrow the fragile
erection, with damage to herself also. Flower, who had disappeared for a
few minutes, now came back.

'It is just possible I can make 'em hear with the trumpet, now they be to
leeward,' he said, and proceeded with two or three others to grope his
way out upon the pier, which consisted simply of a row of rotten piles
covered with rotten pla